Center for Social Innovation (CSI) blogshttp://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/blog
enAre People More Generous When Satisfied than When Experiencing a Need?http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/more-generous-when-satisfied-experiencing-need
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<p>In this month’s column we look at whether people’s personal experience of physical distress –– such as hunger, thirst, heat, or cold –– increases their willingness to help somebody experiencing a similar distress. For example, how does hunger (or recent relief from hunger) affect a potential donor’s willingness to help hungry people as opposed to people with other needs –– such as housing or medical aid?</p> </div>
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<h3 style="font-size: 15px;">Prosocial Behavior Research: Autumn 2014 Column</h3>
<p><img style="margin: 5px 7px; float: left;" src="/sites/csi.gsb.stanford.edu/files//Donations.gif" width="200" height="214" alt="Donations" title="Donations" /></p>
<p>What inspires people to act selflessly, help others, and make personal sacrifices? Each quarter, this column features a piece of scholarly research that provides insight on what motivates people to engage in what psychologists call “prosocial behavior” — things like making charitable contributions, buying gifts, volunteering one’s time, and so forth. In short, it looks at the work of some of our finest researchers on what spurs people to do something good on behalf of someone else.</p>
<p>In this month’s column we look at whether people’s personal experience of physical distress –– such as hunger, thirst, heat, or cold –– increases their willingness to help somebody experiencing a similar distress. For example, how does hunger (or recent relief from hunger) affect a potential donor’s willingness to help hungry people as opposed to people with other needs –– such as housing or medical aid?</p>
<p>In a series of studies conducted in Israel, investigators found that people tend to be more generous when they are satisfied than when they are experiencing a need. Even partial relief from a recent visceral need like hunger motivates people to help others with a corresponding need. However, partial relief from a recent visceral need does not inspire helping behavior in general.</p>
<p>The researchers’ first study was designed to examine how experiencing hunger and its relief affected participants’ willingness to purchase food for the poor in contrast with helping the same group of people with something unrelated –– rental payments. Researchers asked participants to report the time that had elapsed since their last meal and gave half of them an energy bar before asking them how willing they were to donate to the two different needs.</p>
<p>The results provided initial support for the idea that people experiencing relief from a visceral need are more willing to help others with the same need than are people who are still experiencing that need. Specifically, after receiving an energy bar and getting partial relief from their own hunger, participants who had reported not eating for a relatively long time were more willing to donate money to the poor for food than they were to help with rental payments. In contrast, participants who were either not hungry or who were hungry but were not given relief showed greater willingness help with rental payments.</p>
<p>In a second study, some participants were instructed to come to the lab after fasting for at least three hours, while others were not given any instructions. In the hungry group, some were given energy bars at the beginning of the experiment to satisfy their need, while some were not. Meanwhile, those who were not given instructions were also given power bars to assure that they would not begin the experiment hungry. Researchers then examined real donations participants made to purchase food for the poor versus help with their rental payments.</p>
<p>As in the first study, participants who had their hunger relieved donated more to help purchase food. Those who were hungry or who had not fasted showed a slight preference to help with rental payments, and the investigators conjecture this was probably driven by heightened awareness of that need in Israel at the time.</p>
<p>The results of the second study further support the assumption that experiencing an immediate relief from a visceral need –– as opposed to actively experiencing that need –– increases people’s willingness to help those who are experiencing the same need over those who are experiencing a different need.</p>
<p>The research suggests that when people experience partial relief from a recent visceral need, they have a particularly acute understanding of others experiencing a corresponding need. Such an empathic perspective may allow them to extend resources and attention to address the needs of others, which are still vivid and accessible to them. Moreover, the vividness of the recent experience of relief from the same need may help people understand the importance of the resource that is lacking –– such as food, heat, and so forth. The more time that has elapsed since people have experienced lack and relief, however, the more they may relax their identification with the state of the needy, causing them to forget the importance of that specific need and how they may help.</p>
<p>So, what does this mean for those who try to encourage charitable contributions? Suppose you are organizing a fundraising event aimed at soliciting donations to feed starving people in India, and the event includes a multi-course dinner. When is the best time to ask the potential donors for their donations: At the beginning of the evening, when they are still hungry and may better identify with the cause? After the appetizer has been eaten, when they have experienced some relief from their own hunger? Or much later in the meal, when they are already well satiated? Based on our read of the present research, after the appetizer may be best.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/265909272_Visceral_needs_and_donation_decisions_Do_people_identify_with_suffering_or_with_relief" target="_blank">Visceral Needs and Donation Decisions: Do People Identify with Suffering or with Relief?</a>” by Inbal Harel and Tehila Kogu, appears in Volume 56, Number 1 (2015) of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.</p>
<p>More groundbreaking research about prosocial behavior will come in the Winter 2015 quarter.</p>
<p><i>Research selected by <a href="https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/faculty/francis-j-flynn">Professor Frank Flynn</a>, Professor of Organizational Behavior and The Hank McKinnell-Pfizer Inc. Director of the Center for Leadership Development and Research at Stanford Graduate School of Business. </i></p>http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/more-generous-when-satisfied-experiencing-need#commentsWed, 05 Nov 2014 21:30:32 +0000Prof. Frank Flynn16891 at http://csi.gsb.stanford.eduThe Arts as a Social Goodhttp://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/arts-social-good
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<p>In my first blog post, I focused on a personal conviction that engaging with the performing arts has the potential to have immensely rejuvenating and enriching qualities for an individual. In addition to these potential individual benefits, a second aspect of the performing arts that drew me to support the industry is my belief in the arts as a social good.</p> </div>
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<p class="p1"><img style="float: left; margin: 5px;" title="Final Curtain Posted" alt="Final Curtain 332" height="248" width="332" src="/sites/csi.gsb.stanford.edu/files/FinalCurtain_IMG_3291_1_0.JPG" />In my first blog post, I focused on a personal conviction that engaging with the performing arts has the potential to have immensely rejuvenating and enriching qualities for an individual. In addition to these potential individual benefits, a second aspect of the performing arts that drew me to support the industry is my belief in the arts as a social good.</p>
<p class="p1">In a world where so many lines focusing on people’s differences unfortunately continue to be drawn in the sand, I believe that any forces that remind us of our common humanity hold extraordinary value. I personally believe that the arts, and the performing arts in particular, are one such force.</p>
<p class="p1">Not only does drawing attention to people’s differences rather than emphasizing their similarities frequently create distance between people, but often, one group is also arbitrarily labeled as the in group and one as out based on who is framing the delineation in that particular instance generating a construed value structure. I believe that forces that counter the creation of such divisive hierarchies in individual’s lives and today’s societies to be extremely valuable. I personally believe that the arts have the potential to counter tendencies to focus on differences in this way reminding individuals of elements central to their humanity by turning their attention inward to core, common, or intrinsic foundational aspects of humanity sometimes forgotten or overlooked in the hustle and bustle of day-to-day distractions.</p>
<p class="p1">Whether it’s a dancer’s leap through the air that hangs for just that extra fraction of a second seemingly suspended that stops the audience’s heart with the notion of defying gravity or the singer’s scale that lands blissfully on the final high note sending goose bumps up the audience’s arms. Without any training or expertise, I believe people are naturally and collectively moved by a predisposed and common appreciation of an aesthetic. Without any lessons or prompting, these images and moments thrill on an almost universal basis. In this way, I personally believe that the arts have the power to return our focus to a deeply imbedded part of our humanity, even if sometimes only for a split second at a time.</p>
<p class="p1">I continue to feel very strongly that this is supremely important. My internship this summer enhanced my notion of this sense as well as my belief in the importance of ensuring that the arts not only survive, but also thrive in the world. </p>
<p class="p1"><i>Posted by Laura C. Fallon, GSB Class of 2015</i></p>http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/arts-social-good#commentsMon, 20 Oct 2014 20:50:36 +0000MBA Student16876 at http://csi.gsb.stanford.eduHow Activism Can Fuel Corporate Social Responsibilityhttp://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/how-activism-can-fuel-corporate-social-responsibility
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<p>History shows that social movements can shape our society. Activism targeting companies like Walmart, Nike, and BP has catalyzed progress, but companies can be slow to evolve and it is often hard to know which strategies are most likely to get companies to change their ways. How can activists know that their efforts matter? And what is the evidence that their work makes a difference? </p> </div>
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<p><img src="/sites/csi.gsb.stanford.edu/files/CSR.jpg" width="200" height="214" alt="CSR" title="CSR" style="float: left; margin: 5px 7px;" /></p>
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<p>History shows that social movements can shape our society. In the United States, things would be very different without the campaign for women’s suffrage, the public outcry that led up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or the environmental protests that preceded the ban on DDT and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.</p>
<p>Activism targeting companies like Walmart, Nike, and BP has catalyzed progress, too. But companies can be slow to evolve, and it is often hard to know which strategies are most likely to get companies to change their ways. In some cases, activists may not see any results for years. So how can activists know that their efforts matter? And what is the evidence that their work makes a difference?</p>
<p>Recent research by my colleague Sarah A. Soule, the Morgridge Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business, sheds new light on the ways that activism can encourage firms to become more responsive to social and environmental needs. The research conducted by Soule and her colleagues, Professors Brayden King (Kellogg) and Mary-Hunter McDonnell (Georgetown), shows that when people put pressure on firms, firms adopt measures that lead them to be more open to subsequent public pressure.</p>
<p>For activists frustrated by the slow nature of progress, this research is encouraging. It suggests that even a small shift in corporate communications or company structure opens the door for greater responsiveness to activists in the future.</p>
<p>Soule and her collaborators analyzed the behavior of a randomly selected sample of 300 firms that were included in the Fortune 500 at some point between 1993 and 2009. Their data look specifically at two types of activism: boycotts directed at firms and proxy proposals.</p>
<p>Boycotts are a familiar, high-profile “external” form of activism, which often results from a breakdown in the firm’s ability to manage contentious stakeholders and social issues. Building on previous research that shows boycotts generate negative media attention and threaten the reputation of the targeted companies, Soule found that firms often respond to boycotts by establishing a corporate social responsibility (CSR) board committee. These committees usually include nonprofit and civil society representatives that improve the company’s capacity to engage with activists, reduce the likelihood that future grievances will threaten the company’s reputation, and strengthen the company’s ability to recognize and respond to emerging problems in ways that pacify activist stakeholders.</p>
<p>A less familiar form of activism are proxy proposals, or shareholder resolutions, which are written proposals that are voted upon at a company’s annual meeting. Proxy proposals can be used by shareholders to bring a wide range of social issues to the attention of a company’s management. This form of “internal” activism can shake investor confidence in a company and is so effective that many social movement organizations now operate activist investing units, buying stakes in a company so that they will be able to submit a proxy proposal to draw attention to the issues they care about. Soule’s paper cites the example of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which reports holding stock in more than 80 companies that they have targeted with animal rights campaigns. In more adversarial cases, shareholder resolutions can be publicized as a way to generate media attention and galvanize public pressure to get social concerns on the corporate agenda. Soule’s research found that firms are likely to respond to proxy proposals by instituting CSR reports into their external communications practices, which can help alleviate investor uncertainty about a firm’s social and environmental behavior by more proactively communicating the company’s perspective.</p>
<p>Figure 1: Percentage of sample that has adopted a CSR committee or provided a CSR report</p>
<p><img src="/sites/csi.gsb.stanford.edu/files/CSR%20Graphic.gif" width="311" height="240" alt="Percentage of Sample" title="Percentage of Sample" style="float: center" /></p>
<p>Though neither the creation of CSR board committees nor the institution of CSR reports provides a clear “yes” to activist demands, such shifts in corporate practices indicate that the door to change is cracked open. Both actions provide a platform for increased discussion of issues internally and make a firm more vulnerable to future activism, according to Soule’s findings.</p>
<p>Soule and her colleagues cite Nike as one example of how a firm’s response to activism – in all its forms, from protests to boycotts to social proxy proposals – changes over time. Soule’s book <i>Contention and Corporate Social Responsibility</i> details Nike’s experience from the 1970s to the 1990s. During this time, Nike was targeted by numerous protests concerning labor practices in the overseas factories where its shoes are manufactured, and for years the company turned a deaf ear. As Todd McKean, then Nike’s director of compliance, stated in a 2001 interview, “Our initial attitude was, ‘Hey, we don’t own the factories. We don’t control what goes on there” (Heckel 2001). But by the late 1990s, following high-profile protests at over 40 universities that held contracts with the company, Nike began to change its approach. In 1999, Nike adopted a code of conduct to govern its suppliers and over the next five years it conducted more than 600 factory audits to assure that its standards were being met. Today, Nike is ranked at the top of its industry in <i>Fortune’s</i> Most Admired Companies list and may be the most activist-receptive company in the retail industry. Over the past 20 years, Nike has voluntarily agreed to all but two of the social proxy proposals submitted by its shareholders and now collaborates with organizations like Greenpeace.</p>
<p>Over time, activism and incremental shifts in corporate practices have changed the private sector’s approach to activist challenges, and research confirms that social movements are indeed capable of influencing corporate behavior, ranging from curbing harmful toxic emissions to granting employees same-sex domestic partnership benefits to divesting from politically risky countries. Progress continues, but it doesn’t come easily.</p>
<p>“If there is no struggle, there is no progress,” Frederick Douglass once said. For those who are advocates and activists, it is encouraging to know that even small steps of change – like a CSR report or formation of a CSR committee – are vital to future efforts to bring about change.</p>
<p>You can read Soule’s full paper here: <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2432208">A Dynamic Process Model of Private Politics: Activist Targeting and Corporate Receptivity to Social Challenges</a></p>http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/how-activism-can-fuel-corporate-social-responsibility#commentsFri, 10 Oct 2014 16:59:51 +0000Prof. Dale Miller16761 at http://csi.gsb.stanford.eduThe Grammaticus: Academy of Philosophy and Innovation http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/grammaticus-academy-philosophy-and-innovation
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<p>Thanks to SMIF, we were able to make magic happen this year. The Grammaticus is officially a <b>Ministry-recognized Ontario Private School</b> with the authority to grant OSSD (Ontario Secondary School Diploma) credits. Students in our classes earned Grade 11 English and Grade 12 Philosophy credits this summer!</p> </div>
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<p>Thanks to SMIF, we were able to make magic happen this year. Here are some of the milestones that you helped us achieve:</p>
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<li>The Grammaticus is officially a <strong>Ministry-recognized Ontario Private School</strong> with the authority to grant OSSD (Ontario Secondary School Diploma) credits. Students in our classes earned Grade 11 English and Grade 12 Philosophy credits this summer!</li>
<li>We accepted 23 students into our two classes: <i>When the “I” Became a Grammatical Fiction</i> and <i>The Rise and Fall of Human Nature</i>, and every student left a video testimonial raving about the experience. We will release those in mid-October on the Facebook group.</li>
<li>We welcomed guest speakers from <strong>Harvard University, MIT, TEDx, University of Waterloo, York University, </strong>as well as lawyers and business professionals from the private sector.</li>
<li>We hosted and conversed with leaders from <strong>Ryerson University, Ashoka Canada, Markham Public Libraries, </strong>and <strong>MaRS Discovery District</strong>.<strong> </strong>Keep an eye out for potential partnerships in the future.</li>
<li>We will be running a minimum of four courses next summer.</li>
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<p>We raised $29,700 through Indiegogo and offline donations, which was broken down in the following manner:</p>
<p><img alt="Grammaticus Chart" width="450" src="/sites/csi.gsb.stanford.edu/files/blog-image/Graph1.jpg" /></p>
<p>As a part of our crowdfunding campaign, we allotted funders to ask us any life question they wanted a ‘Grammaticus’ answer to. Here is one of those questions and our response:</p>
<p><strong>How would philosophical traditions help me ensure that all the parts of my life (work, family/friends, community engagement) are coherent and demonstrate integrity?</strong></p>
<p>Even to arrive at this question merits you as a person inclined toward health. When teaching philosophy I often explain that having knowledge is almost pointless without the possession of wisdom. Where knowledge is knowing what things are, wisdom is understanding the relationship between things. Without wisdom we never really know what is at stake. Philosophical traditions are, among other things, a record of the positions and the shifts between positions that we have had towards ourselves, others, gods, the good and goals worthy of a human life. In other words, within them we recover a view to past versions of ourselves. According to Ortega y Gasset, and others, human beings do not have a nature per se but rather they have a history. Reading philosophy and integrating its salient force within one’s life is hence a manner of remembering oneself; it is thus also akin to becoming one’s own therapist. As therapists attempt to take the facts of a client’s past, observe the client’s interpretation of these, and then assist a client in constructing rival and healthier interpretations of the same events, the student of philosophy constructs an epic world historical memory, reads history, and so acquires an historical memory of events.</p>
<p><img src="/sites/csi.gsb.stanford.edu/files/blog-image/DSC_0386_0.JPG" width="300" alt="Grammaticus Photo" class="img-left" />Additionally, these events are seen through rival philosophical perspectives promoting specific and sometimes peculiar ‘readings’ of events. So in a manner of speaking, the student of philosophy becomes client and therapist in one; we acquire a perspective of ourselves as resting at a point in time largely constructed by a world historical past. For instance, the 18th century created us because it is within the 1700’s that the “individual” is being born. Concurrently, we come to understand, like that same client in a therapist’s office, that we are merely living in an interpretation of events; we may be temporarily bound by its features — it may be our reality — but it is still merely a transient and evitable interpretation, and hence it can be escaped or reformed. In both cases, a person is actively deciding what narrative they should be living in. Interpretations are the sinews of narratives. Interpretations have motives, assumptions, values and misreading built into them. As Rick Roderick is somewhat famous for observing, market society promotes ‘therapy in reverse’; rather than enhancing human freedom and rational agency through maximizing one’s awareness of the determining factors of his or her existence, today’s professional influencers seek to maximize the degree to which our lives are determined by forces external to us — reducing our agency to a ghostly whimpering shadow. Studying philosophy is like looking into one’s own programming. Qualities hitherto accepted as ‘instinct’, ‘natural’ and ‘normal’ appear as they truly are: social construction. As Hegel pointed out, human desires are not given - they are historically acquired. In this software metaphor, a person could decide to ‘hack’ his or her own software in order to mod it for optimal functionality. When Socrates states, “the unexamined life is not worth living” he suggests that human freedom and flourishing depend upon the fullest exercise of his or her rational agency in the construction and cultivation of the life they are to live and die within. Hailing from a loathing of any form of slavish servitude, having one’s actions determined by outside forces and thus being robbed of one’s agency, Socrates, and his students Plato and Aristotle, wrestles for a form of life that will reduce regret to the necessary minimum. </p>
<p>Philosophical traditions restore the epic culture that Westerners share whether they like it or not. Rather than being blindly determined by a vast and peculiar spree of idiosyncratic assumptions, and allowing these to predetermine one’s fate, becoming conversant with this culture of reflection that produces the modern West reverses the polarity. Power can now flow from us and through us rather than upon us; almost every feature of a Westerner’s life reflects peculiar political, historical and philosophical renovations and innovations both within and against a traditional culture. To a scary degree, the code of our souls so to speak rests within the pages of its renovator and innovator’s books. We are not merely who we are; we are what our history has made us to be. Philosophy chronicles the wars between illumined minds for and against change. Some are explorers; others are restorers. Some are reformers, like Rousseau and Nietzsche, and they hence chose to ridicule and expose the errors and pretensions of combatants on all sides. In these pages we will capture glimpses and sometimes vistas of our own fleeting imaginings. </p>
<p>Perspectives occurring natively within us and as quickly brushed away acquire validation and significance when our surmising is proven accurate. We become something more than unwitting echoes of our forbearers when our nascent knowledge becomes operative. Acquiring grounding, context and perspective through reading leverages our knowledge, however slight at the onset, by an incremental acquisition of wisdom. Wisdom emerges in an almost magical fashion. We acquire conviction about certain principles or perspectives because our rational reconsideration of key issues with minds brighter and prior to our own delivers us to a stable position. Having transcended the rabbit hole of our unread existence we have a hard-won confidence in, at first, a few simple truths. Intuition is made objective through what Charles Taylor has called ‘articulation’. When C.S. Lewis said, “I read to know that I am not alone,” he was revealing the power of articulation to which Taylor points. Through books, and for our purposes philosophy books, first we discover that there is a we, and then we are nourished by the company of others whose concerns, reflections and judgments, positions with which we will certainly often disagree, nonetheless convince us that we are sowing the seeds of our time in the right fields. Thus far this is my longest response. And yet there is so much I have left unsaid.</p>
<p><em>Posted by Johnson Fung, 2014 SMIF Fellow, Stanford GSB</em></p>
<p> </p>http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/grammaticus-academy-philosophy-and-innovation#commentsWed, 01 Oct 2014 17:30:39 +0000MBA Student16741 at http://csi.gsb.stanford.eduMeeting the Demand for Moringa - Dealing with the Blessing and Curse of Publicityhttp://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/meeting-demand-moringa-dealing-blessing-and-curse-publicity
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<p class="MsoNormal">In my first week at Kuli Kuli, the majority of my time was spent on social media and emailing friends, friends of friends, and acquaintances. While that might seem a bit odd given my primary projects – developing financial reporting and analytics, launching a Brand Ambassador program, and developing alternative sales channels – the company was a finalist in the Ledbury Launch competition, which had a prize of $25,000. The set-up was simple: out of three finalists, the one with the most votes would win the prize money and additional benefits like mentoring, discounts on vendors, etc. </p> </div>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><img src="/sites/csi.gsb.stanford.edu/files/boxes.jpg" width="332" height="442" alt="Dealing with fulfillment" title="Fulfilling customer orders" style="float: left; margin: 5px;" />In my first week at Kuli Kuli, the majority of my time was spent on social media and emailing friends, friends of friends, and acquaintances. While that might seem a bit odd given my primary projects – developing financial reporting and analytics, launching a Brand Ambassador program, and developing alternative sales channels – the company was a finalist in the Ledbury Launch competition, which had a prize of $25,000. The set-up was simple: out of three finalists, the one with the most votes would win the prize money and additional benefits like mentoring, discounts on vendors, etc. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Given that Kuli Kuli was launched with approximately $50,000 of crowdfunded money via Indiegogo, the $25,000 grant was a very meaningful amount, and the entire team was laser focused on getting the votes in. Eventually, our calling on friends and promised bribes of moringa bars led to the company winning. Incredibly enough, the win also provided the company with the opportunity to be featured on MSNBC’s nationally televised program, Morning Joe. Our first thought: “Wow, free publicity doesn’t get much better than this.” And we were right! Orders poured in on the website, and we received a number of inbounds for other press and partnership opportunities. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But, few things in life are perfect, and there were a few downsides and lessons to be learned, especially for a lean startup like Kuli Kuli. For one, we had only had a few days of notice before the TV appearance, and so, while the company normally has good insight into sales and can schedule manufacturing runs accordingly, there wasn’t sufficient time to do so in this case, and the online orders rapidly outpaced our inventory. This problem was further exacerbated by shipping delays from our moringa partners in Ghana. So, not only was there a shortage of inventory to fulfill orders, but we were having a hard time predicting when we would actually get the raw materials in stock to replenish. While the delays were painful, the experience provided me with firsthand insight into the complexities of managing a supply chain as well as managing the ever-important customer experience. While most customers were pretty understanding of the delay, some were less so, and the whole team pitched in to address their concerns. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Posted by Christine Wang, 2014 SMIF Fellow, Stanford GSB</i></p>http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/meeting-demand-moringa-dealing-blessing-and-curse-publicity#commentsMon, 29 Sep 2014 15:44:38 +0000MBA Student16726 at http://csi.gsb.stanford.eduHealthy Food Startup - from Execution to Strategyhttp://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/healthy-food-startup-execution-strategy
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<p>At the end of week six of my internship, I had challenged myself to take a step back from the never-ending execution of a startup and try to focus on formulating larger strategies.</p> </div>
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<p><img class="img-left" src="https://www.kincao.com/mainproductimage/1" width="300" alt="One of the high-quality, healthy meals we delivered each day" title="A Kincao Lunch" />At the end of week six of myinternship, I had challenged myself to take a step back from the never-endingexecution of a startup and try to focus on formulating larger strategies. I felt that if I ended the summer without adding lasting, strategic value, I wouldn’t feel like I had contributed to thecompany in the way that I hoped that summer. I therefore had a conversation with the founders about this goal and,after discussing with them what I thought was most interesting about thebusiness, I decided to create a branding strategy that focused on improvingconsumer interaction with the product and increasing customer connection withthe brand.</p>
<p>While this turned out to bea bit more challenging and time-consuming than anticipated, I greatly enjoyedresearching the marketplace, determining where Kincao fit within thecompetitive landscape, coming up with a stronger and more consistent brandidentity, and devising the many marketing tactics that could reinforce this newbranding. I coupled this with a brandingplan that prioritized the proposed tactics and created a timeline that wouldcoincide with their upcoming market expansion. Since I was leaving the company shortly after completing this plan, Iunfortunately wasn’t able to execute on it; but having the time and space to bestrategic helped to round out my summer experience. In the final week, I wasalso able to draw conclusions from the many sales and marketing tests I didduring the summer and propose future strategies from these results, which wasalso gratifying. </p>
<p>My experience working at Kincao was incredibly enlightening. I learned much more than I anticipated, not only about what it is like to be part of a very young startup, but also about the challenges that the healthy food industry - and the food delivery industry - faces, both from a consumer and logistics perspective.</p>
<p><em>Posted by Abigail Stern, 2014 SMIF Fellow, Stanford GSB</em></p>http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/healthy-food-startup-execution-strategy#commentsSat, 27 Sep 2014 16:04:14 +0000MBA Student16721 at http://csi.gsb.stanford.eduAffordable Surgeries for Low/Middle Income Population – Part 2: Making It Happenhttp://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/affordable-surgeries-lowmiddle-income-population-%E2%80%93-part-ii-making-it-happen
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<p>On the first week of September Clinica SiM just performed the first affordable surgeries in Brasil! The surgery packages are ready, and a commercial/marketing road map is ready to be implemented!</p>
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<p>Hello everyone!</p>
<p>I am very happy as on the first week of September, Clinica SiM just performed the first affordable surgery in partnership with doctors, local hospital, and medical equipment suppliers. </p>
<p>We finished the project with 5 specialties and over 20 types of surgieries being offered - mainly on orthopedics (as they are elective surgeries that can be performed with minimal risk and the public system lines can be 3-5 years). The prices are on average 70% cheaper than private practice and can be paid in 10 installments. That is a big change in Brasil! </p>
<p>However, there are some challenges to be overcome: Despite being 70% cheaper, the surgeries are still expensive. We know there is demand, but are people willing to pay? Or would they prefer to still rely on the wait in the public healthcare system (free)? The second issue is the commercial/marketing strategy: How can we best " sell" the surgeries? Should we focus on the doctors? Should we focus on public health patients? Right now the focus will be be on doctors. The third issue is patient triage - we rely on doctors' ability/incentive to offer those packages of surgeries only to patients with low risk (as any complication, they would have dificulties paying extra costs). We designed an incentives scheme and contract to ensure the correct selection, but will that be enough?</p>
<p>I am very excited to see the next episodes of this project. Healthcare in Brasil will undergo a major transformation, and these affordable clinics and surgeries will definitely have a leading part on this change.</p>
<p><i>Posted by Luiza Bet, 2014 SMIF Fellow, Stanford GSB</i></p>http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/affordable-surgeries-lowmiddle-income-population-%E2%80%93-part-ii-making-it-happen#commentsSun, 21 Sep 2014 02:56:13 +0000MBA Student16701 at http://csi.gsb.stanford.eduDefining Culture at a Startuphttp://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/defining-culture-startup
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<p>The two companies I worked at before school were for-profit, public companies with 8,000+ employees and international name recognition. This summer was an opportunity to try something completely different by working at a 16-person company with very little name recognition.</p> </div>
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<p><img class="img-right" height="373" width="280" src="/sites/csi.gsb.stanford.edu/files/IMG_3634.jpg" />The two companies I worked at before school were for-profit, public companies with 8,000+ employees and international name recognition. This summer was an opportunity to try something completely different by working at a 16-person company with very little name recognition. There were many differences between my pre-MBA experiences and experience this summer, most of which I expected. However, one of the things that I had not considered was that a small startup would still be in the process of defining its culture. As more people joined the company, it became clear that it would be important for the founders to determine what kind of company they wanted to build and what culture they wanted to instill. As a somewhat outside observer, here are the four values that I saw as core to the company's culture:</p>
<p>1) Passion for the Business - In a smaller company being truely passionate about the business was essential. With fewer resources, the perks of working at a startup often aren't material things. Instead, the perk is being able to influence the direction of a company that you really care about and further a corporate mission you believe in. All of the employees I interacted with seemed to believe that their work was important and worthwhile because they cared deeply about making the company successful.</p>
<p>2) Commitment to Work - Closely related to being passionate about the business, employees had to be committed to their work. Employees needed to be willing to work long hours, think outside the box, and self-motivate to find ways to grow the company. Work-life balance was discussed as a goal, but successful employees prioritized work and stayed committed even when faced with obstacles.</p>
<p>3) Honesty &amp; Transparency - While a lot of companies say that honesty is one of their values, I was impressed with how seriously the company took this value. Even when there were hard truths such as not being happy with how a situtation was handled or admitting personal failures, employees believed that transparency was essential to keep the company functioning properly. This value also extended to who they were willing to do business with and resulted in turning down some potentially profitable partnerships.</p>
<p>4) Respect for Everyone - Finally, this company relied upon contributions from people with a wide variety of backgrounds and skill sets. My manager made it clear that she valued everyone equally. For instance, when we visited factories she made a point of talking to everyone, especially people who didn't have a formal leadership role. By giving everyone a voice and showing them respect, she helped ensure that employee satisfcation remained high.</p>
<p><i>Posted by Sarah Herringer, 2014 SMIF Fellow, Stanford GSB</i></p>http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/defining-culture-startup#commentsTue, 16 Sep 2014 22:33:10 +0000MBA Student16696 at http://csi.gsb.stanford.eduThe Road Trip to Revitalize America - Part 2http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/road-trip-revitalize-america-part-2
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<p>The last time I wrote here we had just arrived in Nashville to work with Salemtown Boards Co, a skateboard manufacturer focused on employing inner city Nashville kids. I'm writing as part of my experience as a MBAx Fellow working with MBAs Across America, a nonprofit focused on getting MBA students working with small businesses across America -- helping them do anything from identifying their brand and market positioning to understanding inventory costs. My 6-week road trip experience took me across the South, starting in New Orleans, through Savannah, Nashville, Little Rock and now Austin, TX. Overall, the MBAs Across America program includes 32 students who are working on master's degrees in business administration hitting the road to work with 48 entrepreneurs in 26 cities.</p> </div>
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<p><img style="float: left; margin: 5px; border: 2px solid black;" alt="salemtown" height="360" width="270" src="/sites/csi.gsb.stanford.edu/files/IMG_20140905_110707.jpg" />The last time I wrote here we had just arrived in Nashville to work with Salemtown Boards Co, a skateboard manufacturer focused on employing inner city Nashville kids. I'm writing as part of my experience as a MBAx Fellow working with MBAs Across America, a nonprofit focused on getting MBA students working with small businesses across America -- helping them do anything from identifying their brand and market positioning to understanding inventory costs. My 6-week road trip experience took me across the South, starting in New Orleans, through Savannah, Nashville, Little Rock and now Austin, TX. Overall, the MBAs Across America program includes 32 students who are working on master's degrees in business administration hitting the road to work with 48 entrepreneurs in 26 cities.</p>
<p>We spent last week in Little Rock, Arkansas, working with a café called The Root Café. The Root Café is run by husband and wife, Jack and Corri, who are focused on showcasing the amazing local food of Arkansas's farmers. Our first day was spent attending a local farmers' market in the South of Main St. neighborhood of Little Rock, which was traditionally deemed unsafe. Jack and Corri were one of the first businesses to invest in a storefront in this neighborhood and were a key catalyst to its growth, though they are far too humble to take credit for it. It was clear upon chatting with members of the community at the market how important The Root Café was to Little Rock and how much Jack and Corri meant to the community. We spent the rest of the week working with Jack and Corri on a range of topics, from brand brainstorming to customer segment research to analyzing food cost and pricing to deciding if they should do dinner as well -- not to mention enjoying some delicious food! I learned so many things from Jack and Corri, the most memorable of which will be their thoughtful, strong and humble leadership style. They truly believe in building community through local food and continue to think about ways to better engage the community and source more items from local farmers. </p>
<p>We just arrived in Austin yesterday and are geared up to work with Able, a lending startup focused on creating a new way to empower small businesses through what it calls "collaborating underwriting." Able requires borrowers to first have three to five family or friends invest in the first 25 percent of a loan to establish a level of credibility. It then provides the balance and collects regular payments from the borrower and distributes the proceeds to the other investors. We will help Able with market segmentation before heading back to start classes at the GSB next Monday. </p>
<p>Overall, this 6-week road trip across the U.S. to work with these businesses has been amazing. I've been able to meet incredible members of each city we've visited and have gathered so many useful insights about what makes small business owners tick. I've learned that the profile of a small business entrepreneur is diverse and so many of these individuals are driven by so much more than market share and profits. They put their heart and soul into their businesses and take their roles in their local communities as a privilege. They think about community and social impact first, embodying the infamous 'purpose with profits' slogan I've heard from giant corporations. I also learned how lonely it can be to operate as a small business. There is no rulebook for success or making the right decisions, and it can mean the world to have someone validate your ideas and ask you the difficult questions.</p>
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<p>I can't wait to see the great things these businesses will do. I'm confident Salemtown will grow and be able to hire more inner-city kids in Nashville, and The Root Café will listen to the feedback of the community and start to provide dinners. I'm grateful to have been able to spend my summer getting my hands dirty and gaining a whole new perspective on what it means to be 'American' and a small business owner. I look forward to keeping in touch with these folks and hope the relationships I built this summer will last a lifetime. </p>
<p><i>Posted by Rachel Witalec, 2014 SMIF Fellow, Stanford GSB</i></p>http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/road-trip-revitalize-america-part-2#commentsMon, 15 Sep 2014 05:02:33 +0000MBA Student16681 at http://csi.gsb.stanford.eduTechnoeconomic Model Complete!http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/technoeconomic-model-complete
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<p>I completed the technoeconomic analysis for a commercial-scale reactor. Essentially, it's a factory in Excel that lets us see how much it will cost to transform CO2 into different products.</p> </div>
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<p><img src="/sites/csi.gsb.stanford.edu/files/blog_CO2-Capture-Unit.jpg" alt="CO2 capture unit" title="CO2 capture unit" style="float: left; margin-right: 5px;" width="280" />It’s complete! My core deliverable for the summer: a detailed techneconomic analysis of producing liquid fuels from anthropogenic CO2 sources using electroreduction with metal catalysts in a water-electrolyser-like reactor.</p>
<p>Let’s back up for a second. The company where I am working this summer is called CO2Quester, a Stanford startup that is a spinoff of research from the chemical engineering department. The two cofounders, Etosha Cave and Kendra Kuhl, have discovered a metal catalyst that can transform CO2 into liquid fuels, using only water and electricity as inputs. This catalyst has better performance, in terms of energy efficiency and selectivity toward alcohols, than copper, which is the most widely known metal catalyst to induce electroreduction of CO2.</p>
<p>Part of my role this summer has been to build a business case and a technoeconomic model that shows what performance we would need to achieve in order to be cost-competitive with traditional liquid fuels. This model can help drive the direction of research, and it is a requirement for securing a $500,000 grant from the Department of Energy’s Ideas program. That would be a huge win for the summer. The results are in: At our target performance metrics of 65% energy efficiency and 50% selectivity toward alcohols, we can produce ethanol for $2.00 per gallon, which is cost-competitive with corn. The key sensitivity is the cost of electricity.</p>
<p>In essence, I designed a CO2Quester factory, which takes a certain flow rate of CO2 as input, and calculates a breakeven selling price per gallon of ethanol. You can vary the input costs (e.g., the cost of electricity, the cost of water, the cost of CO2), the financing terms, the energy efficiency of the reactor (based on the total cell potential), and the selectivity toward alcohols of the catalyst. It’s been a great exercise, requiring me to gain some new knowledge of electrochemistry, brush up on balancing equations, learn a thing or two about industrial engineering, and even bust out a few techniques that I learned in corporate finance!</p>
<p>I designed a process that is loosely modeled on a biomass gasification plant. In a gasification plant, wood is heated to 1500F in the presence of steam, which transforms it into a mix of CO2, CO, H2, and H2O known as syngas. The CO is converted into a blend of hydrocarbons in an alcohol synthesis reactor, and then the ethanol is distilled out and dehydrated. Our process is similar, although we are using CO2 instead of syngas, and the “gasification” step happens outside of our walls – that’s whatever industrial process is generating CO2. Nonetheless, I was able to find performance metrics for the separation steps of the process and capital costs of the key equipment. I apply these performance metrics and capital costs to our process, and scale them according to the size of the CO2 flux.</p>
<p>We are going to use the initial results of the model in our application
for the M37 government research program, as well as in our site visit with a
potential future client, Pinal Energy, a corn ethanol producer in Arizona. I’m
setting up time with a researcher at the Department of Energy to validate our
findings. Who knew that NPVs and RHEs could play so nicely together?</p>
<p><i>Posted by Nicholas Flanders, 2014 SMIF Fellow, Stanford GSB</i></p>http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/technoeconomic-model-complete#commentsFri, 12 Sep 2014 07:12:21 +0000MBA Student16676 at http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu